Medical/surgical adhesives are well known in the medical art. Examples of such medical adhesives include DERMABOND™, a topical skin adhesive, and HISTOCRYL™, a cryanoacrylate adhesive. Typically, the medical adhesive is dispensed from a product vial through an applicator nozzle tip onto a patient's wound or surgical area. Many of the medical adhesives are based on liquid cryanoacrylate formulations, and most of these liquid adhesives are packaged in cylindrically-shaped vials. Some of these product vials have porous end caps for dispensing of the medical adhesives to the wound area. Other adhesive product vials have applicator nozzle tips thereon for directing the application of the medical adhesive to a localized area on the wound.
As often happens in surgery, the surgeon has no way of knowing the exact shape of the patient's (wound) tissue surfaces on which the medical adhesives will be required. Accordingly, surgeons typically request that a variety of medical adhesive materials be made available during a single surgical procedure on the patient's wound. Some of these medical adhesive materials are suitable for broad stroke application on the wound area via the adhesive product vial. Other medical adhesive product vials have special applicator nozzle tips for pin-point application to a specific wound area on the patient. In this typical surgical condition, there are multiple adhesive product vials at the surgical site which take up the limited sterile surgical site area that is available. Further, since the adhesive product vials are typically cylindrically-shaped, these product vials have a tendency to roll-off the sterile surgical field and become contaminated (unusable by the surgeon) in an unsterile area (i.e., the floor). Alternatively, single porous adhesive product (vial) applicators may be placed in the sterile field along with separate packages of various applicator nozzle tips to remedy the previous surgical situation. Although this solution sounds reasonable, the approach adds to the number of adhesive product vials, the secondary packages of applicator nozzle tips and further (additional) clutter in the sterile field. Additionally, the applicator nozzle tips are small in size and therefore may be easily lost in the sterile field by the surgeon.
In the foregoing circumstances, there remains a need for a packaging assembly for surgical use having a single adhesive product vial that is capable of administering the medical adhesive in broad strokes to a patient's wound and/or having the adhesive product vial modified with an applicator nozzle tip prior to use for a more precise application of the medical adhesive. Additionally, there is a need for an adhesive product vial that may be placed in the sterile field without the surgeon's concern that the adhesive product vial will roll-off and out of the sterile field. Still further, there remains a need for a convenient way to modify an adhesive product vial in order to provide a different type of an applicator nozzle tip from the standard one that is normally affixed to the vial.